Monday, October 12, 2015
Wednesday, September 2, 2015
Tom MIsch's Beat Tape 2 part 1/2
Tom Misch is a producer from the UK. His style drifts a bit but this album has strong roots in neo-soul/blues. The album has about 7 singles and 5 beat tracks. This is very different than his original beat tape 1 which featured almost no vocal tracks.
The album goes as follows:
The Journey: A strong drum track which complements the guitar parts that are very sparse throughout the song. Everything leads up to a great blues inspired solo for about the last minute.
Wander With Me: A 5 minute track featuring Carmody on vocals. Jazzy guitar chords work well with the simple melody and are just the right level of distracting. Definitely one of the stronger tracks on the album.
Nightgowns: A very short mellow hip hop track featuring Loyle Carner. The feel for this track would be enough, but having Loyle Carner write a couple of verses really makes this track stand out. the hook is probably the weakest part in the song musically.
Falafel: This song follows the outline of the original beat tape 1, an interesting melody and a strong groove
Wake Up This Day: A strong neo-soul inspired track with a genius use of background harmonies
In The Midst Of It All: This song is hands the best song on the album and one of the vibiest songs i've ever heard. The song features Sam Wills on vocals and starts out with mind numbing atmospheric harmonies that continue through the first verse. The chorus is the only part of the song that features a beat. the ending guitar solo starts out with the spacey feel but the chorus comes in halfway through and is just incredible.
The album goes as follows:
The Journey: A strong drum track which complements the guitar parts that are very sparse throughout the song. Everything leads up to a great blues inspired solo for about the last minute.
Wander With Me: A 5 minute track featuring Carmody on vocals. Jazzy guitar chords work well with the simple melody and are just the right level of distracting. Definitely one of the stronger tracks on the album.
Nightgowns: A very short mellow hip hop track featuring Loyle Carner. The feel for this track would be enough, but having Loyle Carner write a couple of verses really makes this track stand out. the hook is probably the weakest part in the song musically.
Falafel: This song follows the outline of the original beat tape 1, an interesting melody and a strong groove
Wake Up This Day: A strong neo-soul inspired track with a genius use of background harmonies
In The Midst Of It All: This song is hands the best song on the album and one of the vibiest songs i've ever heard. The song features Sam Wills on vocals and starts out with mind numbing atmospheric harmonies that continue through the first verse. The chorus is the only part of the song that features a beat. the ending guitar solo starts out with the spacey feel but the chorus comes in halfway through and is just incredible.
Thursday, May 21, 2015
North by Northwest
North by Northwest is an action/thriller movie with a very well told story that is highly thought provoking. The story follows a man who was framed for murder and is forced to traverse the country to escape the police.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_by_Northwest
The movie was very entertaining for being shot in 1959 and the story manages to feel fresh even with today's films. This is most likely due to Alfred Hitchcock's directing skills that were so influential. Although the story elements are up to par with today's standards, some of the cinematography was often not. Shots often dragged on for too long and 9/10 of them were medium to wide angles. Some scenes like the one where Thornhill is being attacked by a crop dusting airplane were very long when there was no reason for it. This scene in particular lasts about 4 minutes. Despite it being too long, it still manages to be an iconic scene from the movie because of it's ground breaking cinematography with moving shots, quick jump cuts and first person perspectives. whereas most of the other parts of the movie felt like you were watching a play. (as a lot of films from that time did)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbpUcAI86MY
The story is told how Thornhill sees it and the camera goes where he goes. This allows a connection to take place with the viewer especially at the beginning of the movie. I felt as confused and disoriented as Thornhill himself.
It would be hard for me to find an element I haven't used from this film. By this I mean that the film was so influential that I use many of the elements without even knowing it. For example the cinema graphic elements such as the editing style and camera movement.
An element I have already learned and used in most of my films is the importance of good dialogue.
Hitchcock did an excellent job of conveying story elements and using ground breaking cinematography techniques.
It is hard to think of a way that this work could improve because of the time period it was made. But if it was made today I would have made it shorter.
Overall this was a quality film and I recommend you to check it out if you're up for something different.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_by_Northwest
The movie was very entertaining for being shot in 1959 and the story manages to feel fresh even with today's films. This is most likely due to Alfred Hitchcock's directing skills that were so influential. Although the story elements are up to par with today's standards, some of the cinematography was often not. Shots often dragged on for too long and 9/10 of them were medium to wide angles. Some scenes like the one where Thornhill is being attacked by a crop dusting airplane were very long when there was no reason for it. This scene in particular lasts about 4 minutes. Despite it being too long, it still manages to be an iconic scene from the movie because of it's ground breaking cinematography with moving shots, quick jump cuts and first person perspectives. whereas most of the other parts of the movie felt like you were watching a play. (as a lot of films from that time did)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbpUcAI86MY
The story is told how Thornhill sees it and the camera goes where he goes. This allows a connection to take place with the viewer especially at the beginning of the movie. I felt as confused and disoriented as Thornhill himself.
It would be hard for me to find an element I haven't used from this film. By this I mean that the film was so influential that I use many of the elements without even knowing it. For example the cinema graphic elements such as the editing style and camera movement.
An element I have already learned and used in most of my films is the importance of good dialogue.
Hitchcock did an excellent job of conveying story elements and using ground breaking cinematography techniques.
It is hard to think of a way that this work could improve because of the time period it was made. But if it was made today I would have made it shorter.
Overall this was a quality film and I recommend you to check it out if you're up for something different.
Friday, May 15, 2015
Yonkers Video
When we got assigned this project I was happy because the music videos I have done in the past were always the ones that my groups had the most fun with. We decided on the video Yonkers by Tyler the Creator and OFWGKTADGAFLLBBLSBFBN. We decided to make up our own lyrics to the song using the same form and lyrical flow. We created the song but decided it would be too difficult to lip sync to so we scrapped the idea. The final video you see is the original audio with the some censorship in the lyrics.
We spent an entire day just trying to get the lighting perfect and get the silhouette effect perfect. This extra time was worth it because it looks just like the original video. we used 3 large lights to light up the background and one to flip on and off when the silhouette was needed. once we got the lighting down we realized we needed to actually memorize the lyrics so we could sync them. we ended up writing all the lyrics down on a large whiteboard and trying to only glance at them when we absolutely had to. (This is very prevalent in Matt's part due to having no prior knowledge of the lyrics whatsoever)
One of the things that could have been better would be the camera movement, or the lack of it. The best thing we could have had to improve this was more people on set to control lighting, sound and cinematography so Solomon or I didn't have to do all of it by ourselves. something we would keep the same is the fact that didn't wait until the last minute to do everything :)
something that we learned that may enhance our next project is to not underestimate the Panasonic cameras. We were forced to use one because all of the DSLRs were checked out. As you can see in the video, the Panasonic did an adequate job.
I am happy with the way the video turned out because during production it seemed like it had a very high chance of being just mediocre. It really came together in the editing.
We spent an entire day just trying to get the lighting perfect and get the silhouette effect perfect. This extra time was worth it because it looks just like the original video. we used 3 large lights to light up the background and one to flip on and off when the silhouette was needed. once we got the lighting down we realized we needed to actually memorize the lyrics so we could sync them. we ended up writing all the lyrics down on a large whiteboard and trying to only glance at them when we absolutely had to. (This is very prevalent in Matt's part due to having no prior knowledge of the lyrics whatsoever)
One of the things that could have been better would be the camera movement, or the lack of it. The best thing we could have had to improve this was more people on set to control lighting, sound and cinematography so Solomon or I didn't have to do all of it by ourselves. something we would keep the same is the fact that didn't wait until the last minute to do everything :)
something that we learned that may enhance our next project is to not underestimate the Panasonic cameras. We were forced to use one because all of the DSLRs were checked out. As you can see in the video, the Panasonic did an adequate job.
I am happy with the way the video turned out because during production it seemed like it had a very high chance of being just mediocre. It really came together in the editing.
Thursday, December 18, 2014
Spoken Word
The idea for the spoken word project came pretty easily. The idea was to use the song "Time" by Pink Floyd and make it into a poem. We tried to incorporate the meaning of the song as much as we could in the video. The song is about how people forget to live in the present and it is told directly to you. some of the lyrics hit pretty hard...
"Time"
"Time"
Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
Fritter and waste the hours in an off-hand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way
Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun
And you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death
Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought I'd something more to say
Home, home again
I like to be here when I can
When I come home cold and tired
It's good to warm my bones beside the fire
Far away, across the field
The tolling of the iron bell
Calls the faithful to their knees
To hear the softly spoken magic spell
Fritter and waste the hours in an off-hand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way
Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun
And you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death
Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought I'd something more to say
Home, home again
I like to be here when I can
When I come home cold and tired
It's good to warm my bones beside the fire
Far away, across the field
The tolling of the iron bell
Calls the faithful to their knees
To hear the softly spoken magic spell
As you can see it goes through the life of a person from early childhood to the final moments of an individual's life.
so we kept this kind of idea of time going by and included it in our shots focusing on deserted areas and things like sunsets or water flowing. In the end it turned out very well and we achieved the vibe that we wanted the video to have.
Wednesday, December 17, 2014
Holiday video
The holiday music video project was an interestingly challenging one. It started out strange with some minor issues with the group I was in, but the project turned out excellent.
The underlying idea was was to make a ridiculous rap video using a ridiculous rap song and that is exactly what happened. The song we wound up with was perfect. The pre planning was very minimal and we mostly relied on our on the fly wit and planning skills to pull this one off. This wasn't ideal but we wouldn't have tried if we thought we couldn't do it.
One thing I would have definitely changed would have been the amount of time I had to edit because I felt pretty rushed at the end. Something I am taking away from this project is that I need to do more music videos because they always seem to turn out great. I have an original song that I just recorded that I think has potential to have a great music video, I definitely need to get on that...
The underlying idea was was to make a ridiculous rap video using a ridiculous rap song and that is exactly what happened. The song we wound up with was perfect. The pre planning was very minimal and we mostly relied on our on the fly wit and planning skills to pull this one off. This wasn't ideal but we wouldn't have tried if we thought we couldn't do it.
One thing I would have definitely changed would have been the amount of time I had to edit because I felt pretty rushed at the end. Something I am taking away from this project is that I need to do more music videos because they always seem to turn out great. I have an original song that I just recorded that I think has potential to have a great music video, I definitely need to get on that...
Codecs
Codecs are the ways computers handle files. Codecs can be used to compress files to make them smaller and easier to work with. They use complex algorithms to do so. some examples are: h.264, Prores, and DNxHD NOT .mov or .wmv, which are simply what hold the codecs in a video.
Chroma sub sampling: This method decreases the size of a picture file by selecting a box of pixels and forcing them all to use the different shades of the same color
Spatial compression: using a single frame, this method finds boxes in the frame that have almost the same color and makes them the same color, saving memory
Temporal compression: The inter frame method looks for similarities between the frames of a video and only changes the spots that change in the video.
The more bit depth an image has the more shades of a color the codec can produce. for example, an 8-bit image can produce 256 shades for each red green and blue (RGB) whereas a 10-bit can produce 1024 shades for each RGB. this is because the number of shades for 8-bit is 2 to the 8th and for 10-bit is 2 to the 10th.
In general you want to shoot a video or a picture using a codec that captures the most information so that way you are not restricted when you want to change things like color correction.
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